Show IUAGIXATIOX IX WAIL Something More Injurious to the Courage of Soldier Than Bullets In my opinion remarked the eel lege professor who rose from the ranks during the last war to the position of colonel the imagination of men does more injury to the cause of courage than all appliances of war yet discovered dis-covered In other words caromed a Wash ington Star reporter if a man didnt think he wouldnt be afraid of any thing Thats about it admitted the professor pro-fessor I had a remarkable case happen hap-pen to me during the battles around Richmond That is to say it happened to another man but I was part of it It was on a skirmish line and I was lying behind a log with two other men I was only a private then one of whom was an Inveterate Joker and the other was one of the imaginative kind of soldiers In fact he was so Imaginative imagin-ative that he was almost scared out ctf his wits and when the bullets and shells began flying through the woods cutting off saplings clippings limbs all around us and barking the top of the log behind which we lay I thought the fellow would burst a blood vessel or go crazy or do someother fool thing unbecoming unbe-coming a soldier Tom the Joker noticed no-ticed the mans terror and called my attention to it Then he reached out and dragged in a stick cut from the tree above us by a bullet and fixing a pin in it proceeded to have his fur The man was at the far end of our log ten feet from Tom and I was just beyond Tom on the other side and I am free to confess was nervous enough to wonder at Toms manner at such a time However How-ever I couldnt help watching his movements and actually laughed to see him sliding the pinpointed stick along toward the unsuspecting victim Having got it at the Tight distance he waited for a smashing volley of bullets and just as it came he prodded the soldier in the back with the pin Well It was really funny to see the chap Jump and yell and roll over and wet both we-t fairly howled But it wasnt so funny when the man didnt move oilier his first startled action and Tom looked look-ed around at me in a scared kind of way His surprise found expression in an oath and he called to the man There was no answer and he called again with the same result Then he crept over to him and gave him a shake That brought no response either eith-er and Tom dragged him around so he could see his face It was an ashy blue with eyes staring wide open and the man was as dead as Julius Caesar with never a mark on him save perhaps per-haps that one pinscratch on his back I should think your Joking friend could never have forgiven himself for that cruel joke suggester the writer Im sure he never would have concluded con-cluded the professor because Tom was a good fellow and a brave soldier but he never had much of a chance to for when the next volley came he was on his knees beside his dead comrad trying to do something for him and hi head was just high enough above th log for a shell to clip the whole top cit c-it off |